[FYI] German Companies Aren't Betting on E-Business

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

http://www.internetnews.com/intl-news/print/0,1089,6_252501,00.html

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German Companies Aren't Betting on E-Business  

December 2, 1999 Frank Petersen, Germany Correspondent 

International News Archives  

[Berlin] German businesses seem to have quite a poor view of the 
future of e-commerce, according to a recent pan-European marketing 
study by German consulting group CMG.  

According to the report, around 71 percent of all German businesses 
are currently not making any notable amount of profit via the 
Internet, and only 17 percent expect a noticeable increase in this 
sector over the next 12 months.  

Around 30 percent of German companies are convinced that, even in the 
best case scenario, they would only be able to generate a quarter of 
their total revenue from online business.  

Compared to the last study, which carried out about 6 months ago, the 
overall perception of e-commerce in Germany has turned pessimistic. 
German lags far behind its European neighbors in terms of online 
expectations: three quarters of European countries expecting a 
considerable increase in e-commerce during the next year, whereas 36 
percent of German firms believe that development is more likely to 
stagnate.  

In contrast to Germany, other European countries are entirely 
convinced that in 2 years time, more than a quarter of total revenue 
will derive from electronic trading. Around 60 percent of German 
firms do not even believe that this will be the case within the next 
five years.  

However, while more than half of all German managing directors 
believe the Internet is an important sales channel, around 75 percent 
of non-German managers hold the same opinion.  

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